The Taliban tunnels of Pakistan

NY Times:

When Pakistan’s army retook this strategic stronghold from the Taliban last month, it discovered how deeply Islamic militants had encroached on — and literally dug into — Pakistani territory.

Behind mud-walled family compounds in the Bajaur area, a vital corridor to Afghanistan through Pakistan’s tribal belt, Taliban insurgents created a network of tunnels to store arms and move about undetected.

Some tunnels stretched for more than half a mile and were equipped with ventilation systems so that fighters could withstand a long siege. In some places, it took barrages of 500-pound bombs to break the tunnels apart.

“These were not for ordinary battle,” said Gen. Tariq Khan, the commander of the Pakistan Frontier Corps, who led the army’s campaign against the Taliban in the area.

After three months of sometimes fierce fighting, the Pakistani Army controls a small slice of Bajaur. But what was initially portrayed as a paramilitary action to restore order in the area has become the most sustained military campaign by the Pakistani Army against the Taliban and its backers in Al Qaeda since Pakistan allied itself with the United States in 2001.

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There is much more.

The article suggest the Pakistani army employed a scorched earth policy in the area. It is hard to judge how accurate that description is, but the Pakistan army has been reluctant to get training from the US on counterinsurgency strategy. It tends to use aggressive attacks which cause casualties on both sides. I think they have probably sustained more casualties than the US and NATO sustained in the past few months.

There is a pretty good description of the fighting. The Taliban in Pakistan, like those in Afghanistan use human shields which leads to civilian casualties. The reporters do not seem to comprehend that this is a violation of the Geneva Conventions by the Taliban and they seem to blame the Pakistan army rather than the Taliban for these casualties. They seem to use this same inverted moral logic when the US uses air power to defeat the Taliban. They must know it would be unacceptable if we did it, but they seem to be more than careless about the enemy doing it. It is a moral inversion that I have never seen the media explain.

The good news is that the Pakistan army has joined the fight and they are distracting the Taliban from their objectives in Afghanistan and also inflicting significant casualties on them. If they keep it up it could shorten the war. It would be even shorter if they would drop their illogical rejection of US support in fighting the common enemy in Pakistan. That would also probably reduce the Pakistan army's casualties too.